


So Sharp A Thorn

by MsBarrows



Series: Arren & Co. [2]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comfort/Romance, Hurt, Kink Meme, M/M, Prompt Fic, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, k!meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBarrows/pseuds/MsBarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a k!meme prompt, asking for an Alistair/Jowan relationship and saying "Clumsy courtship is a must, as is rampant fluff. I want sap and I want to squee. (Sex is not a requirement but fluffy clumsy virginal sex would be nice too)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rescue

_One time the hands of wind upon my hair  
Could heal me like a mother's touch and kiss.  
When I could give my airy griefs to the air  
I never knew so sharp a thorn as this._

 _The joy of flower and wind and sighing bough—  
It comes not back again for tears and rue.  
A year agone I had not sought as now,  
And found the sky a vault of empty blue._

 _\- The Spanish Girl, Nora May French_

  


* * *

"There is still the matter of Jowan. He performed the ritual, and did not deceive us. In a way, he saved Connor's life even though he killed Isolde. I am unsure what to make of this," Teagan said tiredly.

Arren frowned thoughtfully, nodding agreement. "I would like him released," he said.

"Released? This mage is a maleficar. Even if I ignore his crimes, I cannot simply unleash him on the land!" Teagan exclaimed, looking horrified.

"Released to me, Bann Teagan," Arren hastily clarified. "I promise that I have no plans to let him run free."

"Very well, do whatever you want with him," Teagan agreed, frowning at the elf. "Considering all you have done to aid myself and my family, I can hardly refuse you."

"Thank you, ser," Arren said. "And now I'd better get underway – it's a long way to Denerim to see this Brother Genitivi of whom you spoke."

"Are you sure there's nothing else I can do before you go?" Teagan asked.

Arren gave the man a warm smile. "No, we're well restocked and well rested, better to be underway."

"Of course. Let me see you out," Teagan said. "I'll send the guards to fetch the mage from the dungeon."

"Are you sure about this?" Alistair asked quietly once Teagan had made his final farewells to the group and headed back into the castle. "I mean, he is a blood mage... but I suppose this is an unusual situation."

"I say the boy could be of use to us," Morrigan said.

"He is dangerous, my dear. If not to others, than surely to himself," Wynne interjected.

"Which reminds me – Alistair, I want you to stick close to him," Arren said.

"Me? Why me!"

"Almost a templar, remember? I want you to be ready to drain him if it becomes necessary. Or knock him out if he's cutting his wrists for other purposes," he added grimly.

"You think he might want to kill himself?" Alistair exclaimed, looking shocked.

"I think it's at least a possibility," Arren said, then gave a slight nod of his head to where the courtyard entrance to the cellars had just swung open, permitting a pair of guards to lead out their prisoner. Alistair turned to look at their newest companion.

His black hair hung in lank, greasy strands around his unhealthily pale face. He staggered as the guards led him out into the sunlight, wincing and then lowering his head, raising one hand to shade his watering eyes. The reek of the dungeon clinging to his clothes reached them before he did; moldering straw, rotting food, dust, rodent feces, unwashed body, and the sharp tang of old urine.

"All yours, wardens," one of the guards said as they drew close, and setting his hand in the middle of Jowan's back, gave him a push forward. He probably meant it to be a gentle one, but misjudged just how weak the mage was; Jowan stumbled forward, crashing directly into Alistair, and would have fallen to the ground if the warden hadn't caught him.

" _Maker, he's skin and bones!_ " was Alistair's first thought as his fingers closed on the man's arms and he realized how light and fragile-seeming the mage was. His second thought was one of distaste for having had to come in contact with the filthy man at all, especially when he saw something _moving_ in Jowan's hair, just inches below his own face. He hastily righted the mage, feeling glad that his hands were safely separated from any real contact by his metal gauntlets. Until he thought of how bruising the grip of his startled catch likely had been.

"Sorry," Jowan wheezed. "Can't see properly... it's too bright..."

"It will take his eyes a while to adjust, after being in a dark cellar for so long," Wynne agreed. "And I don't think we'll be able to travel far today. He'll need some healing and a good meal or two in his stomach first."

"And a bath," Morrigan said firmly, looking at the mage as if being this close to him made her skin crawl. "Though I can at least take care of..." she trailed off, eyes unfocusing for a moment as a nimbus of energy formed around her hands, then lazily floated over to surround the mage.

" _Thank you!_ " Jowan said, his voice momentarily firm with honest appreciation.

"What was that?" Alistair asked, puzzled. He'd never seen Morrigan use a spell quite like that before.

"I've made sure he is not accompanied by any of the livestock he'd picked up. 'Tis a simple spell – a variation on what I do when I wish to absorb the life force of an enemy. Only rather more... wide-focused."

Wynne was nodding approvingly. "Most disciplines of magic have spells that can be turned to the same purpose – one thing you need never fear around a mage is being bitten by bedbugs."

"Unless you raise the mage's ire, and then you may be very well-bitten indeed," Morrigan said, then turned and started walking away, clearly impatient to be moving.

Arren looked puzzled as he fell into step beside her. "Then why didn't he do that himself?"

"Magebane," Morrigan, Wynne, Jowan and Alistair answered in unison, to Arren's startlement. Mouse, Arren's mabari, gave a short wuff, as is to say that even _he_ knew that.

"They kept me dosed with it all the time I was imprisoned," Jowan said softly. "Couldn't even raise enough mana to light a candle, if I'd had a candle to light. I was overdue for my next dose when you reached the castle, or I'd never have had the mana to perform the ritual. They... dosed me again when I was returned to the dungeon, afterwards. It will be a day or two before I have any power again."

Arren grunted acknowledgement. The party continued on in silence, heading across the castle bridge and up into the hills around Redcliffe, where they'd left Sten and Leliana encamped with their gear.

* * *

The first order of business, once they reached camp, was to find some clean clothes for the mage, then to send him off to the nearby stream with Alistair in attendance and some good strong soap.

"Do I really need a guard?" Jowan asked worriedly as the pair of them reached the small pond along the stream that was currently serving duty as a bathing spot for the group.

"I'm no happier about this than you are, believe me," Alistair assured him. "But Arren wants an eye kept on you and he volunteered me for the duty. Considering your only other real options are a qunari who believes mages should be kept on a leash, and an Antivan assassin who would spend the entire time making lascivious comments, you're getting off lucky."

"Oh," Jowan said softly, looking if possible even paler than before. He turned his back, and unfastened his robe, dropping it to the ground in a noisome heap before wading out into the water, hissing at how cold it was. He crouched down, ducking under the surface and rising again, scrubbing at himself with handfuls of water and sand from the stream bed to remove the worst of the grime from his skin.

Alistair sat down on a nearby rock, wishing he'd taken the time to remove his armour before accompanying the mage to the stream. It was likely going to take the mage a while to get clean. On the other hand the part of him that had paid attention to his templar training was yammering " _Blood mage! Smite it!_ " in the back of his head, and feeling heartily glad of the nice safe thick armour between him and the maleficar. Not exactly the most rational of reactions when all the man was doing was bathing, but then much of what the chantry had tried to inculcate in him as a trainee had little to do with rationality, at least in his opinion. Though a lot of what they'd had to say about blood mages struck him as eminently logical. He really hoped Arren knew what he was doing, taking on Jowan as one of their group. On the other hand their makeup was already so eccentric that a blood mage would probably fit right in.

It wasn't until Jowan turned to wade back to shore and get the soap that Alistair realized he'd been staring at the man – keeping an eye on a potential hostile, the voice in the back of his head corrected – and found himself frowning at just what he was seeing. Apart from a painfully gaunt, sickly pale, almost naked man, that is. His arms and legs were dotted with scars and a few scabs, many of the marks still angry and red.

"I thought you said you only ever did blood magic once before that ritual yesterday?" he asked sharply.

Jowan looked up, startled pale grey eyes briefly meeting Alistair's before he flushed and looked away. "Three times, if you include the one time I ever succeeded at it before deciding that I really didn't want to learn any more of it," he said softly. "That was a year before my... escape."

"Then what are all those marks from?" Alistair demanded suspiciously, pointing at Jowan's scarred limbs.

The mage's flush deepened, and he hunched in on himself. "Arlessa Isolde thought I might know how to cure the Arl. She... had me questioned," he said, voice flat and emotionless. "It... got even worse, after Connor became possessed."

Questioned... _tortured_ , Alistair realized, feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. "Oh," he responded, quietly. He didn't know what else to say. Jowan was still standing motionless. "Get back to your bath," he ordered brusquely.

Jowan didn't say anything, just picked up the soap and waded back out into the steam.

* * *

Jowan was a sight when the two of them headed back to camp. He was wearing a pair of leggings contributed by Zevran – as lean as he was, they were actually a good fit for him, a little loose if anything – and a much-patched old shirt of Alistair's that hung on him like a tent. He was considerably less broad and a good bit shorter than the warrior, and as a result looked more like a child trying to wear his father's clothing than an adult man. They'd buried his robe before leaving the stream; as stained, filthy, and worn as it was, it wasn't worth trying to salvage it. Alistair suspected they'd buried a healthy dose of bad associations along with it, judging by the nature of some of the stains.

Arren was crouched by the fire stirring the pot of stew. They only had one good-sized cook pot, and all it ever contained was stew, except when they were running short on rations or were having poor hunting, when it contained soup instead. Stew was better, since the leftovers tended to solidify into a thick mush as it cooled, and could be easily carted along to the next campsite. They'd only twice had to wash out the pot and start a new batch since Arren had taken over the cooking. Once when Alistair had been entrusted with reheating the stew and managed to burn half of it onto the bottom of the pot, and once when someone had left the lid off and Mouse had gotten into it overnight, adding plenty of drool as a condiment that none of them particularly wanted to try out.

Never-ending stew might have grown boring after a while, except it was rarely the same twice – except, again, when they were running short on things – the complex flavour changing from day to day as Arren, Zevran and Morrigan threw in different herbs, foraged edibles, and whatever game anyone happened to get in their travels. Alistair and Morrigan had both been worried at first about the assassin being allowed to add anything at all to the pot, but Arren had insisted they trust him, and so far the Antivan had managed to refrain from poisoning them.

Wynne walked over as soon as she saw the two of them, and insisted on examining the mage on the spot. She frowned and hummed and clicked her tongue, and occasionally cast small spells, and by the time she pronounced him well enough "for now", he actually had a bit of colour back in his cheeks.

"Don't take a very big helping of stew," she advised the mage. "You've been kept on poor rations – and too little of them! – for too long. It's going to take your body a while to readjust. I want you to eat only a little bit at any time, though you may snack frequently throughout the day. And I'll mix you up a potion to prevent digestive upset."

"Thank you, Wynne," Jowan said softly.

He was, Alistair was noticing, a very timid and subdued man. Not at all like any of the other maleficarum he'd encountered in their travels. They tended to be... loud, and self-assured. Aggressive, even, and cruel. Comparing Jowan to them was like... like... like comparing a dormouse to Mouse. For the first time he began to think that Arren's decision to recruit the mage to their group hadn't been as foolish as it may have seemed.

* * *

Alistair's tent wasn't particularly big, so fitting two bedrolls into it was a tight squeeze, especially since it also had to contain Alistair's armour – which couldn't be left out where the damp might get at it – and which even stacked in as small a compass as it could be occupied almost as much room as a third person. A third person in a fetal position, true, but still a substantial portion of the floor space at one end of the tent. And then there was his shield, and his sword, and his other sword, and his backpack of clothes and personal oddments.

Jowan, on the other hand, had nothing at all, not even owning the clothes on his back at present. Sten had contributed a second shirt so he'd having something to change into at night. If he'd looked like a child in Alistair's shirt, he looked like a toddler in Sten's.

It was... odd, to have another person in the tent with him, to hear quiet breaths nearby and the faint rumblings of someone else's digestion. The last time he'd shared a tent had been... oh yes. Before Ostagar. It had been his brother wardens then, all of them divided among several too-small four-man tents on the journey from Denerim to Ostagar. Four man tents, but with their numbers requiring them to cram five to six people on each. You couldn't take a deep breath without having someone's knee in your gut or foot in your ear. Or worse, Habert's flatulence in your nose, if you'd been unlucky on what tentmates you had that night. But it had been friendly and comfortable, surrounded by the tingling warm presence of his brothers-by-taint, with long wandering random conversations, growing increasingly slurred and disjointed while they waited for sleep to claim them.

He blinked, and blinked again, waiting for the suspicious moisture in his eyes to dry before rolling over, back to Jowan.

* * *

 _Green sky, seething with motion like curdled milk being stirred or porridge at a slow bubble, thick and clotted. Dragon that looked black in the green light, save for its pitiless silver-white eyes. It screamed, head snaking from side to side, a blast of blinding blue-white flame bursting forth from its straining jaws, bringing out streaks of dark purple-red colour where the reflected light highlighted its scaled coat. It_ hated _. It_ wanted _. It_ commanded _. He felt the urge to answer, to follow its insidious summons to it, to worship it and obey it and slay for it, killing and killing without end until flesh and muscle failed..._

He gasped as he woke up, shaking and sweating. That had been a bad one. He wondered if it had awakened Arren too. Assuming Arren was actually sleeping, and not curled up with the witch somewhere.

He was still breathing in deep, shuddering breaths when he realized he wasn't the only one having a nightmare. Jowan was jerking in his sleep, head tossing from side to side. Faint mutters escaped his lips as he moved, disjointed words, little fragments of words.

"No... don't know... can't _do_... please, no... not Lily, not Li... no!"

Unthinking, Alistair reached out and touched the man's shoulder. He jerked upright, a cut-off scream escaping his throat even as he awoke.

"Oh, _Maker!_ " Jowan moaned, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, knotting his hands into his hair, back hunched. His shoulders shook.

"Jowan? Are you okay?" Alistair asked softly, reaching out as if to clasp his shoulder, then stopping, hand still some distance away. One thing you learned fast sharing a tent with wardens of assorted martial disciplines – never touch someone unexpectedly, especially when they were in a state about something.

Jowan drew a ragged breath, straightened slightly, swabbing at his face with the end of one overly-long sleeve. "Yes, I'm... I'm okay," he managed to say, voice breaking on the words. "Just a nightmare. I'm sorry for waking you..."

Alistair snorted. "Don't be. I was already awake anyway. Nightmare of my own," he explained softly. "Need anything? A drink of water?"

Jowan gave a shaky laugh. "No. I'm fine. Thank you for asking." he said, then lay back down. They both lay there, saying nothing further, until sleep eventually reclaimed them each in turn.

* * *

Alistair and Jowan walked along side by side, some distance back from the others. They hadn't had any footwear suitable for the mage, and he was out of shape after spending so many weeks confined in a small space, so his pace was slow and careful, and increasingly footsore.

They reached the top of one of the innumerable small grassy hills in the area. Jowan was blowing like a bellows from the uphill walk. Alistair pointed at a small outcrop of chalky rock. "Sit and catch your breath for a few minutes," he suggested.

Jowan looked worried. "The others will outpace us..."

"They already are. Don't worry, just sit and rest for a bit, you'll travel better for it."

"All right," Jowan said hesitantly, and sat down. He frowned at Alistair, standing patiently nearby. "Don't you... want to rest, too?"

"I am," Alistair told him cheerfully. "When you're wearing heavy armour, just not having to walk for a while is a rest. And believe me, standing in armour is much preferable to sitting or lying down in it. Though I can sleep in it if I really have to. Don't recommend it though. Not unless you're the type that enjoys punishing yourself. It's like trying to bed down on a random collection of small stones and tree roots. Hard edges poking into you everywhere."

Jowan gave a short, surprised laugh, then sighed and leaned back, propping himself up with arms outstretched behind him, tilting his face up to the sky and closing his eyes. He took several deep, appreciative breaths through his nose, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

"I love the wind," he said quietly after a moment, rolling his head from side to side a little, as if rubbing against the breeze that was teasing his thick black hair. "In the tower, it was the only bit of the outside world I ever got to experience regularly. Most of the windows are very small and high up on the wall, higher than even a tall ladder can reach, and a lot of them have broken over the years and never been repaired; too much hard work to get the glass, I suppose. Anyway, there's a sort of a magic field in them, to keep the rain and birds and insects out, but the wind comes right through. You'll hear it, moving around way up above you in the vaults of the ceiling. And some times," he said, voice slowly dropping, slowly getting dreamier. "Sometimes a gust or two of it will swirl down, to floor level, and the _smells_... Lake water and sun warmed grass, or the bite of snow, or that special _clean_ smell of rain... so good..."

Alistair found an unexpected smile crossing his own lips as Jowan fell silent. "I know what you mean," he said quietly. "Sometimes I'd be stuck indoors for weeks on end – not as bad as the tower, I know, but still, more than long enough, especially when I'd had so much freedom before being sent to the chantry. I missed so many different things, and it was always the smells the air brought in that made it worst. I remember being so homesick I was weeping, just from the smell of horse manure on a sweltering summer day..."

Jowan opened his eyes, gave Alistair a puzzled look. "The chantry?" he asked cautiously.

"Yes. Oh, I guess you don't know the background of anyone in our little travelling circus, do you. I'm so used to everyone now I forget what an odd lot we are. I was sent off to the chantry when I was ten. Spent the next nine years there, about half of it in training to be a templar"

Jowan bolted to his feet, all colour draining from his face. "You're a _templar!_ " he exclaimed, looking about ready to bolt for the far hills. Assuming his legs could even carry him that far.

"Woah, woah, calm down," Alistair said, alarmed, holding up his empty hands. " _Trained_ as a templar. I'm a Grey Warden, not a templar, for which I gave daily thanks, thank you very much."

"Oh," Jowan said, looking slightly less nervous. He bit on his lip, ducking his head and looking away. "Sorry, it's just..."

"I know. Templars plus mages equals bad combination. Well, it's not supposed to, but that's how it seems to work out more often then not, doesn't it?" he said bitterly. "You know, we're not supposed to be jailors. We're supposed to be guardians, there to protect the mages, not there to imprison them. At least that's what I think. Though I don't believe the Revered Mother or the Divine would necessarily agree with my interpretation of things, unfortunately. Anyway, we'd better get a move on."

Jowan nodded and fell into step beside him again. A good foot further away to the side than he'd been before their stop, Alistair noted, and felt... disappointed. He always hated seeing people change as they found out more about his past.

* * *

Jowan was nervous around Alistair for the next couple of days, then seemed to decide that Alistair's templar training wasn't anything to worry about after all, and relaxed again. The group, meanwhile, had encountered the Feddics again, and reunited with their stockpiled odds and ends, and Bodahn's 'discounted' gear, they'd managed to put together some more things for the mage to wear and use. A staff they'd picked up somewhere that had been too good to sell off right away, but not quite good enough to replace the staffs Wynne and Morrigan were already using, some leather boots, leather leggings, and a clean new shirt more his size, a backpack, changes of smallclothes, socks...

All the walking in the sun and the regular good food had the mage filling out and gaining colour, his skin luckily having decided to tan rather than burn. Apart from his nose, which turned alarmingly red the first day and then peeled sheets of skin the second, before finally settling down to joining the rest of his skin in turning an even golden brown.

He was walking much more jauntily, and even essaying occasional jokes with the other group members, offering them shyly as if uncertain of their reception, and smiling happily when people smiled and laughed, and joked in return. He seemed to blossom in the face of his easy acceptance by the other members of the rag-tag group, gaining quickly in confidence. Alistair began to suspect that the biggest – and perhaps only – problem the mage had ever really had was that he'd felt so much alone and an outsider even in a tower crammed full of other people. Having the very real threat of tranquillity looming overhead constantly couldn't have helped him much either.

Alistair found himself enjoying the man's continued company a lot more than he'd have expected to. Jowan took such a deep, simple pleasure in so many little things, like his love of the wind, his perpetual delight in bright flowers and sunsets and the natural beauty of the world around them. He'd been astonished when they'd come across one of the rare giant trees while passing through the edges of the Brecilian forest, staring up in open-mouthed awe at the towering tree, so big around at its base that the entire group of them would have been unable to stretch their arms around it.

It made Alistair feel like he was seeing things for the first time again too, recalling to him the wonder he'd felt as a child. He found himself calling things to the mage's attention; a colourful snake sunning itself on a rock near the path, the brightly-edged shelf fungus growing all up the side of a half-dead tree, a fat green-and-brown spider crouched in the middle of a perfect dew-flecked web. Seeing Jowan's face light up in delight at each offering never failed to bring a smile to his own lips.

Most nights now they talked for a while before sleep, comparing being raised in the circle and being raised in a stable and the chantry, finding many points of similarity between their two experiences. Sleeping in dormitories, for one. What it was like to be small and scrawny and too smart and picked upon. Special memories... an unexpected gift of a golem doll to a small child who spent his days in a hay-filled stall, a sparrow that had somehow flown into the tower one day and been an astonishment to a young mage who'd heard of birds but had never seen one apart from illustrations in books and the occasional distant dark speck glimpsed through a high window.

"That was when I realized that the world outside was real, that the things I was reading about in books actually existed somewhere," Jowan confessed, then smiled ruefully. "Of course, I still had to learn the different between fact and fiction. I believed some quite astonishingly erroneous things when I was younger."

Alistair snorted, a bitter smile briefly touching his own lips. "Don't we all, at some time or another? That we are or aren't wanted. Or cared for. Or _loved_."

"Yes," Jowan whispered quietly in the darkness of their tent. "I think that's why I..." he abruptly stopped talking. He didn't say anything for a long moment, then sniffed, a suspiciously juicy sound. Crying silently, Alistair realized, recognizing the sound all too well. He didn't say anything, just rolled over and gave the other man's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Jowan took a deep, shaky breath. Neither of them spoke again that night, both lost for a while in their own dark thoughts of the past before sleep claimed them.


	2. Rescue

Jowan was understandably quite nervous during the couple of days they spent in Denerim, seeking out Brother Genitivi – not home, but his assistant was able to tell them where the man had last been headed to – and resupplying. He stuck to Alistair's side like glue, so it seemed like Alistair was bumping into him every time he turned around. It annoyed him – briefly, very briefly – and then amused him. He had to admit, he was feeling rather protective of his dark-haired friend, and any templar that recognized the maleficar for what he was and tried to take him away would have had to get past Alistair first. Not that any of them did, thankfully.

They'd have been hard-pressed to, anyway. He looked very little like a soft, tower-bred mage any more, and nothing at all like the frightened dungeon mouse they'd left Redcliffe with. He was fit, richly tanned, and while he was still nervous around strangers, had a ready smile for any of his companions. The only item he carried or wore that was even slightly mage-like was the rough oak branch he used as a staff, and as it looked exactly like a walking stick – and he used it as if it was one – no one even appeared to notice it. He looked like a yeoman or some farmer's son, not a mage.

But then, Alistair found himself thinking, that was part of the ongoing tragedy that was the circles; so many of the mages locked away in them _were_ the sons and daughters of farmers, millers, merchants, smiths, craftspeople of every breed, ripped away from their families and immured in a world where even a simple breath of wind was a wonder to savour. He wondered if it was easier for people like Jowan, who'd been brought to the tower so young he had little to no memory of the world outside, or for older children, who'd have clear memories of family and friends and life outside and being accepted. Being loved.

From Denerim they headed back west again, taking the northern route this time.

Three days west of the city, they had their first encounter with darkspawn since leaving Redcliffe; surprising, really, that they'd entirely missed them travelling east, even though they'd passed within a few miles of the haunted ruins of Lothering.

* * *

One moment they were walking along the rutted dirt track, conversing quietly, Leliana humming some jaunty tune to herself. The next Alistair and Arren stopped, dropped their packs and drew their weapons, both turning to look to the south, moments before a group of darkspawn boiled out of the the concealment of a dry stream bed. Most of the group, used by now to the warden's preternatural ability to detect nearby darkspawn, were already unlimbering their own weapons or staffs, shedding their own burdens. Jowan was the only one who wasn't sure what was going on, though he was smart enough to raise his own staff and look the way everyone else was when he saw what the others were doing.

Still, it was his first actual encounter with darkspawn, and at the sight of the oncoming group of genlocks and hurlocks he was hard pressed not to turn tail and run away out of sheer overwhelming terror and revulsion. He thought later that it was only that he was too frozen by fright to move that prevent him from an ignominious retreat.

And then Alistair was between him and the oncoming creatures, Arren a few feet to one side, his massive two-handed sword already drawn back for a blow, the rest falling in to their assorted positions – Zevran and Mouse ready to dart in and harry things around the edge, Sten falling in on the other side of Alistair from Arren, Leliana and the mages clustered behind them. Jowan quickly took the couple of steps necessary to place him to one side of Wynne, Morrigan opposite him, so that anything trying to get at the elderly healer would have to get by pretty much everyone else in the party first.

It got hectic after that, the air filled with the crash and sizzle of spells, weapons moving in bright arcs through the air, temporarily darkening with blood time and time again as they pierced hearts, slashed bellies, removed heads or limbs. Even caught up in his own role in the battle – which mainly consisted of casting his limited repertoire of spells very, _very_ carefully – Jowan had a moment to feel astonished at the skill and grace of the warriors and rogues. Alistair, with his bright armour and loud cries and glittering shield seemed to be a magnet for the creatures. Sten and Arren winnowed through them with their great blades like harvesters scything grain, while Zevran and the mabari darted in and out, attacking whatever vital spots they could reach. Leliana's arrows cut through the air with an uncanny ability to clearly miss her friends while sinking into her foes with deadly accuracy.

And then as quickly as it had started, it was over, the men resheathing their weapons, pleased grins on their faces as they viewed the carnage. Wynne hurried over to check that no one was in need of her healing talents, concerning herself first with the qunari and assassin, since they were most in danger if they chanced to get darkspawn blood into an open wound.

Jowan saw Alistair and Arren slap each other on the back, then Alistair stretched, lithe as some great predator even in his heavy armour, sun glinting in his golden hair, a wide smile still on his face. _Maker_ , he was _magnificent_... Jowan quickly turned away, looking for his discarded backpack, unsettled by the direction his thoughts had just veered.

* * *

Jowan had been unusually quiet ever since their encounter with darkspawn the day before. Alistair put it down to the upset any rational being would feel after first encountering the vile creatures. He'd asked Arren once if it was easier or harder to face them now that he was a Grey Warden, and immune to the taint. Arren had thought about it seriously for a long time, and then confessed that he couldn't really say. His one experience of them prior to being recruited by Duncan wasn't long enough in duration for him to remember more than how frightening it had been, how concerned he'd been to try and locate his missing friend Tamlen. And it had been a different experience again in the Korcari Wilds, when he'd at least known what to expect and been with others, and mainly had been feeling sick and shaky and just wanting things to be _done_ so he could be cured of the taint he could feel poisoning his body.

"The best answer I can give is that it's differently hard every time we have to face them," he'd said.

And Alistair had had to agree with that summation, since his own experience seemed to agree with it.

"We're going to camp early today," Arren called out. "I know it's only mid-afternoon, but I remember a spot we camped at near here that had a good bathing spot and I am _dying_ for a bath. Any objections?"

Dead silence and pleased grins from everyone was his answer.

"Motion carried then," he said, and a few minutes later led them off the road and up a narrow trail to a small clearing well back from the road, tucked in among a heavy stand of trees and with a stream curling around one end of it, with a sizable pond discretely screened from the camp by a tall growth of cattails along its banks.

By popular consensus the women took care of setting up camp while the men went to bathe; Morrigan, Wynne and Leliana all planned to linger over their baths, and didn't want impatient stinky men making comments while they did so.

Zevran had shucked off half his armour before they even reached the screening mass of cattails; the others waited until they were out of sight to begin stripping.

The area with the cattails was a rather mucky shallows along one side of the stream, but the pond itself was large, chest-deep out in the middle, and had a sandy bottom. After stacking their armour and clothing on the small sandy beach at one end of the pond, the men waded out. Alistair found himself noticing how differently each of them approached the task of washing up.

Sten waded straight out to the middle at a steady pace, ducked under – the water was only about waist high on him – then started lathering up with a hard bar of oddly smelling soap that barely foamed. He'd mentioned once that it was made from oil pressed from a kind of sour tangy berry that grew on trees and was good to eat dried, salted, or pickled in brine, as well as being an important source of the oil, which was used both in cooking and in lamps.

Zevran boosted himself into a tree growing beside the pond, ran gracefully out along an overhanging branch, and dived into the water, barely making a splash as he cut the water, after which he languidly floated around on his back, gently waving his hands back and forth to keep himself up, eyes closed and a content smile on his face. He'd use a very foamy, spicy-scented soap once he was ready to actually bathe, Alistair knew from prior experience.

Arren was much like Sten – a straight-forward entry to the water, after which he cleaned himself using a paste of herbs and roots he regularly made up whenever he could gather the correct materials.

Jowan was picking his way nervously out into the water. He stopped before reaching the deepest part, and ducked himself a few times, then set to scrubbing at himself with sand and water. He'd use real soap later, the same strong lye-based soap Alistair used. Alistair bought that because it was inexpensive, it did the job well, and it was what he'd become used to in his years in the Redcliffe stables and the Denerim chantry. Jowan used it because they shared the soap.

As he waded out into the pond himself, aiming at a spot in the deeper water beyond Jowan, he couldn't help but contrast the mage's appearance with everyone else – and with how changed he was since that first bath after leaving Redcliffe.

He looked... healthy, now. Still skinnier than anyone else currently in the pond – even Zevran had wider shoulders and more muscular arms and legs – but filled in, not gaunt. Not any fat on him though. Not that he didn't have muscles, as he twisted and turned to scrub at himself Alistair could clearly see them bunching and shifting under his tanned skin, just... he was lean. Spare.

Jowan rose to his feet again, and slicked his hair back from his face, locking his fingers behind his head and stretching, back arching, the top curves of his buttocks momentarily rising above the surface of the water as he rose on tip-toe. The water drops clinging to his skin glinted like jewels in the sunlight, jewels that were slipping and sliding down his exposed flesh, some leaving little bright threads of moisture behind them.

Alistair swallowed, mouth suddenly gone dry. Jowan's arms dropped, and he started to turn, undoubtedly to head back to the shore and fetch a dollop of soap. Alistair quickly turned and looked a different direction. It would be bad to be caught staring at another man. Especially by that other man. Bad. _Very_ bad.

He found himself facing Zevran instead. The elf was standing instead of floating and giving a very appreciative look in... in _Jowan's_ direction. He continued staring for a long moment, then abruptly met Alistair's gaze. A slight smile – no, a knowing _smirk_ – crossed his lips, and he raised an eyebrow at Alistair.

Alistair turned away from him as well, and ducked under the water, hoping no one else would notice the flaming red of his cheeks.

* * *

Jowan transferred a large dollop of the soft, acidic-scented lye soap from the earthenware container it was stored in onto the palm of his left hand, then re-corked the jar one-handedly before turning and wading back out into the pond. He kept his left hand carefully above the water as he waded out to where Alistair was crouched in the deep water, gazing off into the surrounding trees as he scrubbed at himself with handfuls of sand.

"Alistair – here," Jowan said quietly as he drew close. Alistair started, then turned and looked back over his shoulder at him, gaze dropping to his outstretched hand.

"Oh, thanks," he said, and straightened and turned, stepping closer. Jowan glanced nervously up at his face, and was relieved that Alistair was looking down at his hand, not at _him_. He glanced down as well, just as Alistair cupped his own left hand under Jowan's, supporting it across his fingertips, and then used the side of his right hand as a scoop to scrape about half the gooey soap off Jowan's hand and onto his own. Jowan's felt his own breathe catch at the casual contact, and was sure his cheeks were colouring.

Alistair quickly turned away, and Jowan did the same, so that they were standing side-by-side, facing in slightly different directions, angled away from each other.

Jowan quickly rubbed his hands together, evenly coating them in the soap, then began running his hands across his chest and stomach, his shoulders and arms. The lye soap did a good job of getting things clean, but you wanted to be quick in using it, or the caustic stuff would start to inflame and then peel your skin.

Alistair was using his with equal alacrity, Jowan noted out of the corner of his eyes. He found himself feeling horribly conscious of how close the other man was, how big he was – a head taller than Jowan, and easily twice as wide through the shoulders, though he tapered down to surprisingly narrow hips. Jowan found himself listening attentively to the even sound of Alistair's breathing, the faint hisses and grunts he made as he contorted himself to scrub as much of himself as he could reach with the soap. Jowan turned his head away, to remove the distraction from his field of vision, wishing he could so easily block out the little sounds as well.

He found himself facing Zevran instead, the elf lathering up with a smooth bar of very pale yellow soap, the distinctive scent of sandalwood and – what was that, musk perhaps? – filling the air. His eyes weren't on what he was doing, however, but were instead... glued on Alistair. Zevran's eyes flicked to Jowan for a moment, and he gave him a cheerful smile, then looked at Alistair again, the tip of his tongue emerging to lick sensuously along his lips. Jowan froze for a moment, then frowned, and moved a little to the side, blocking Zevran's direct line of sight. The elf met his eyes again, winked, then turned and faced the other way.

Jowan rubbed the soap into his hair last of all, keeping his eyes and mouth tightly closed during the procedure, then ducked under, scrubbing furiously to make sure he removed every trace from his scalp. He rose to his feet, gasped in a few lungfuls of air, then ducked under again and repeated the rinse before he was satisfied. Alistair had finished at about the same time, he noticed.

He sank back in the water, so only his head remained above the surface, in no hurry to leave the pond. Alistair did the same. They floated there side by side in companionable silence.

* * *

"Yesterday was your first experience with darkspawn, wasn't it?" Alistair hesitantly asked.

"Yes, it was," Jowan agreed. "I'd made it from the tower to Denerim and then back west again before they'd moved north from Ostagar."

Alistair frowned and nodded. "If you have any questions or worries about them, I can try to answer your questions," he offered. "Though if it's anything magic related, obviously Wynne or Morrigan would be a better choice to ask."

Jowan nodded. "Thanks," he said softly.

Alistair suddenly felt something sharp poke him in the back of the neck. He twitched and yelped, clapping one hand to the back of his neck, before rising to his feet and spinning to look behind him. Jowan turned as well. Zevran was standing behind the two of them, a cattail in each hand, an amused grin on his face. He flourished the cattail that was in his right hand, aiming the pointy dry spike rising from the plump brown cattail as if pointing the tip of a weapon at Alistair. "I demand satisfaction!" he spat out, then abruptly tossed the second cattail, until then held upright in his left hand, toward the warrior.

Alistair caught it automatically, feeling surprised, then his sense of the absurd kicked in and he was suddenly grinning as well. He changed his grip on the slender stem to more properly grip it, the point of his cattail lowering to almost touch Zevran's. They both shifted into a guard position, left sides of their bodies turned away from each other. Alistair heard Arren give a bark of laughter as he caught sight of what the two were up to. That seemed as good a signal to start their dual as any – Zevran appeared to think the same, as both exploded into motion at the same time.

They quickly found there were problems with trying to use land-based moves in an aquatic environment. The water slowed their motion, negating much of the effect of attempts at fancy footwork. And they had to keep their weapons unnaturally high, to avoid smacking into the water, which had a distinctly deleterious effect on weapon speed. And, naturally, that meant cuts or jabs at anything below roughly waist-level on Alistair and mid-chest on Zevran were right out of the question.

"What is the purpose of this exercise?" Alistair could hear Sten asking Arren, sounding puzzled and faintly disapproving.

"Entertainment, Sten," Arren responded. "Here, let's give it a try too," he said, and a moment later he entered Alistair's field of view, wading over to the cattail bed, a puzzled Sten following in his wake.

It all got dreadfully silly after that. Even Jowan got in on the act, snapping off replacement cattails as quickly as they were needed to keep everyone else supplied with weapons. At one point Zevran was holding off both Sten and Arren, a cattail rapier in one hand and the broken-off head of a cattail as a dagger in the other. Then Alistair and Arren were fighting back to back while Sten and Zevran circled them, doing their best to separate the pair. Jowan discovered around then that the cattails that had started breaking apart into loose rolls of silk-suspended seeds would explode into an impressive cloud of fluff if thrown with sufficient force against a reasonably hard surface. Such as the back of a large muscular warrior. The air filled with floating organic matter as all three warriors and the rogue turned on the hapless mage, chasing him around the pond until they succeeded in catching him and ducking him.

"Boys!" Wynne's voice cut through their revelry. "Am I going to have to come over there and drag you all out by the ear? We're still _waiting_ for our turn."

The men stopped their playing, grinning at each other like mischievous children.

"Sorry, ladies," Arren called out. "I'm afraid we got a little carried away. We'll be right out." he assured her.

"Good," she said dryly.

They all had to duck under the water a few times to wash the coating of fluff off their skin, before returning to shore, dressing enough to be reasonably modest, then gathering up their gear and vacating the pond so the women could have their turn.

* * *

They'd dried off, fully dressed, erected the remaining tents, and had the never-ending stew heated and some pan bread to go with it baking in a lidded cast iron spider, before the women finally returned from their own baths, all three of them smiling, looking relaxed and pleased.

It ended up being a very pleasant evening, everyone sitting around the main campfire – even Morrigan deigning to join them for once, instead of keeping off to herself as she normally did. They ate, and talked, told anecdotes of their pre-Blight lives, or jokes, or stories. Leliana sang them an Orlesian folk song. Sten quoted them something in his own tongue – something from the Qun, apparently. None of them understood the words, but the sound of it in his deep rumbling voice was lovely. Arren told a Dalish story about a foolish hunter and all the trouble he got into by being too impatient to do things the right way. Jowan shyly piped up and told a funny anecdote about a prank he and a couple other apprentices had once pulled on a fourth apprentice.

Wynne laughed when he'd finished, then smiled widely. "So _that's_ what happened to Anders' orange robe! That was very naughty of the three of you. I highly approve," she added, eyes twinkling, then yawned and looked surprised. "Oh dear, it's much later then I thought, isn't it. I'm afraid it's past time for me to head to bed."

That signalled a general withdrawal towards tents and bedrolls. Alistair and Jowan remained by the fire, neither of them feeling like retiring just yet. They sat in silence for a few minutes after everyone had left, either to their tents or, in Sten's case, to take the first turn at watch.

The silence was broken as Arren re-emerged from his tent, he glanced at them, smiled sheepishly and nodded his head when they saw him looking at them, then turned and strode off across the clearing toward Morrigan's little almost-separate encampment.

"He's a lucky man," Alistair said softly.

Jowan gave him a curious look. "I thought you didn't think much of the witch?"

Alistair shrugged. "I think we mainly snipe at each other out of habit, actually. Woman's got a sharp tongue and she isn't afraid to use it. But I grew up around some real shrews. If anything it's kind of... oddly comforting, to have someone to bicker with that way."

"Isolde one of them?" Jowan asked, very softly.

Alistair darted him a look. "Yes. Though I shouldn't speak unkindly of the dead," he answered, equally quiet. "She... wasn't always as selfish and cruel a woman as she seemed. From everything I've heard she was... rather sweet, as a young girl."

"What happened to change her?"

"Me," Alistair said ruefully. "I was a bastard born in the Arl's household, and he... looked after me. More or less. So rumour of course had it that I was his."

"Ouch."

"Indeed. So... I can't say I ever liked the woman, nor she me, but... she had reason. Or at least thought she did," he said quietly, looking down at the ground between his outstretched legs. "I guess the Arl came to regret his generosity in the end. He sent me away to the chantry. Where at least I got a better education than I'd have had if I'd continued as a stable boy, and eventually learned how to fight, and then a while after that went into templar training," he said, grinning.

"Fighting first, training second? Sounds like me, nasty spells first, harrowing second. Except I've still not ever actually been harrowed. On the other hand I haven't been made tranquil yet either, so I suppose that's a plus..."

" _Don't_ " Alistair said, voice cracking, reaching out to touch Jowan's arm. "Templar trained, remember. I know all too well what being made tranquil involves. We had to study that, along with all the other horrors committed in the name of keeping a lid on mages. Just the thought of it... worse, of it being done to _you_..." he broke off, unable to continue, hand tightening uncomfortably on Jowan's arm.

Jowan looked wonderingly down at the hand on his arm, then slowly raised his head and gave Alistair a searching look. "You... care that much about what happens to me?" he asked, voice very small and full of wonder.

Alistair didn't even hesitate. "Yes," he rasped out. "I do. Care, I mean. Very much."

* * *

Something felt like it broke inside Jowan at those simple words Or no, not broke – _released_. He drew a deep shuddering breath, and then started crying, near silently, tears just spilling from his eyes, his breaths rough and uneven.

He felt a strong arm circle his shoulders, was tugged over against a large, solid, _warm_ body, tucked in under Alistair's strong right arm like a chick under its mother's protective wing. He turned his face into Alistair's shoulder, letting the tears flow, his own hand grabbing a fistful of Alistair's collar. He felt Alistair's other arm come up around him, hand cupping the back of his head, thumb gently stroking up and down against the nape of his neck in a soothing motion.

Part of him felt horribly embarrassed by his involuntary reaction to Alistair's words. That it was taking place out here by the fire, in clear view of anyone who happened to look out of or exit their tent, made it even worse, it made him feel even more self-conscious about it. Yet at the same time, being held so securely, so comfortingly, Alistair making quiet little soothing sounds right beside his ear, the warmth of the man, the solidity of his arms, the sheer amount of _caring_ in what he was so unthinkingly doing, made Jowan feel _treasured_ in a way he couldn't ever remember feeling before. Appreciated. _Wanted_. Not the unlovely scrawny mage that no one cared about, that could count his friends on the fingers of one hand and have most of the digits leftover. That had managed to lose even those friends from one moment of frank stupidity and panic.

He cried until he was all cried out, head feeling thick and stupid, body trembling with after-reaction. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was _sleep_. Lay down and curl up and just let the world go away for a while. Anywhere. Here, if there was nowhere better.

"I'm so tired," he managed to whisper, his voice a thread of sound, mostly muffled by the sodden shoulder of Alistair's shirt.

He felt Alistair nod, then shift. For a moment he started to panic, thinking he was about to be abandoned again, and clutched convulsively at Alistair's shirt. "No!" he choked out.

"Shhh, it's okay, we've just going to our tent," Alistair said softly. "I'm still with you. Come on, stand up, it's just a few steps away. Or I could try carrying you, but I don't think that would be good for either of our dignity."

Jowan managed a weak laugh at that, and somehow, with considerable help from the warrior, made it to his feet and stumbled the few paces to their tent. Alistair helped him in, then there was a few minutes of muttering and fumbling around while Alistair helped him change into his night shirt, covered him with blankets, then stretched out beside him, draping one arm protectively over him.

He sighed. He was safe, he was secure, someone _cared,_ and... he slept, deeply and dreamlessly.

* * *

He awoke feeling oddly empty and light. Some time during the night he and Alistair had shifted positions. The warrior was on his back, right hand resting on his stomach, left arm hooked out to the side around Jowan's shoulders and back, so that Jowan was pressed along his left side, head resting on Alistair's shoulder, his own right arm trapped somewhat uncomfortably under him and left arm draped over the man's torso. He felt his face heating with embarrassment at how... _intimate_... a position it was. About the only worse position he could imagine waking up in would have been the two of them spooning. With one or both of them with a morning erection. Which, thank the Maker, didn't appear to be a problem at the moment.

Alistair's chest rumbled with a low chuckle. "Awake, are you?"

Jowan swallowed nervously. "Yes," he rasped out, surprised at how rough his voice sounded. "Sorry," he muttered, and started trying to disentangle himself from the larger man.

Alistair obligingly moved his left arm out of the way, folding it under his own head and rolling over onto his side to look at Jowan. "You don't have anything to be sorry for," he said softly.

Startled, Jowan darted a look at his face. He was watching, a very slight smile on his lips, and his eyes were so warm, and _accepting_... even Lily had never looked at him that way. He felt a tremble pass through him, and almost started weeping again.

"What's wrong?" Alistair asked, voice as soft and caring as the look in his eyes.

"I... it's..." Jowan stuttered. And then drew a deep breath, and started telling Alistair about Lily. How beautiful she'd looked the first time they'd ever met. How surprised he'd been when his first awkward overtures were well received. The friendship that had so quickly sprung up between them, how they'd spend time together in the chantry, her tending to her chores around the room, him sitting somewhere near, the two of them endlessly talking about their dislike of the tower, their wish to be somewhere else. How much in love with her he'd felt.

They'd started discussing plans to escape the the tower. Not entirely seriously, of course, he'd still so desperately wanted to get through his harrowing first, putting the fear of being made tranquil behind him – because once you were harrowed, it wasn't allowed to tranquil a mage without extreme provocation. And then Lily's discovery that he was going to be made tranquil anyway, with never a chance at passing his harrowing. His panic at the news, how he'd recruited his only two friends – safely past their own harrowings – to help him destroy his phylactery and attempt an escape. How they'd succeeded at the first part, only to be caught as they left the basement.

He risked a glance at Alistair. The man was listening attentively, his open face showing only concern for the mage, no distaste or dislike. It gave Jowan the courage to keep talking, to tell the worst part of it, the part that had haunted him in nightmares ever since.

"Greagoir sentenced me to death on the spot. He was absolutely _certain_ I was a blood mage. I wasn't even going to have a chance to argue my side, to _explain_... yes, I'd studied blood magic, it was a fascinating subject, and I was even curious enough that I'd cast a single spell, once, just to see what it was like... but I'd sworn to myself I'd _never_ use what I knew. But... I panicked. I so desperately wanted to escape, I used my belt knife and stabbed my own hand, and... Lily looked _horrified_. She backed away from me, with such loathing in her eyes. I wanted to die on the spot, it hurt so much. So I ran. I used my blood to power a spell to knock everyone out, and I turned, and I _ran_. And I lost everything I'd ever wanted... my friends, my home, someone who... who _cared_ about whether I lived or died..."

He started weeping again, and then Alistair was sitting up and holding him, making little soothing sounds as Jowan wept. This fresh bout of crying thankfully didn't last as long as that the night before, but by the end he was feeling equally drained, equally in need of sleep.

"Rest," Alistair told him, helping him to lay down, and gently tucking the sheets in around him. "I have to go away for a minute, but I'll be right back, I promise. All right?"

He nodded drowsy acceptance, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Alistair rose to his feet and stretched after exiting the tent, and looked around. He was mildly surprised to find that the only person in sight was Arren, sitting by the fire with his mabari Mouse at his side, keeping an eye on breakfast.

Arren looked up as he stepped over. "Is he all right?" he asked quietly, tipping his head toward Alistair's tent. Somehow, Alistair wasn't surprised that the elf had divined that there was a problem; Arren was good at reading people. And tent walls weren't exactly soundproofed material. Whether or not Jowan's earlier words had been understandable, undoubtedly the broken tones of his voice had been audible.

"He will be," Alistair said softly, dropping down into a squat by the fire. "He's... working through some things at the moment."

Arren nodded understandingly. "I've told the others we're taking a rest day," he said. "And asked them to make themselves scarce for the morning. Zev and Sten have gone hunting, Wynne and Leliana have gone herb-gathering, and Morrigan is flying around somewhere, keeping an eye on things. And as soon as you've taken custody of this frying pan, Mouse and I will be heading out after Zev and Sten.

Alistair grinned at his words. "Thanks, Arren," he said.

"No problem," the elf said, and rose and walked away, Mouse falling in at his heels.

Alistair stirred the contents of the spider – a fry-up of chunks of potato, wedges of onion, and strips of smoked ham – put aside a small serving on a clean plate for the mage, then inhaled the remainder himself, straight from the pan. One less thing to clean that way.

When he returned to the tent, Jowan was already stirring again, having only had it in him to take a brief nap after that latest bout of crying. He handed the mage the plate of food as soon as he sat up. "Get yourself on the outside of that," he gently advised him. "You need some food in your belly."

Jowan nodded, and started eating, picking dully at it for the first few bites, then his hunger woke up and he devoured it as single-mindedly as if he, too, was a Grey Warden.

Alistair settled down on his own bedroll, arms locked around raised knees, and quietly watched Jowan eating. He was all too familiar himself with the lassitude that settled in on one after a good cathartic cry; it wasn't all that many months ago that Arren had helped him work through his own grief at the death of Duncan and the Grey Wardens. It had all come to a head for him when they'd discovered Cailan's eerily uncorrupted body at Ostagar. The brother he'd never had a chance to know, and now never would. It had taken him three days to work through it all, with Arren's help. Cailan, the wardens... even his long-buried grief over Maric, his deeply-buried hatred of Eamon, it had all come out. It took a lot out of you, he knew, both emotionally and in terms of energy. But you came out of it... stronger. It was like lancing an ugly infection; the pus and bloody clotted matter had to be discharged, before real healing could begin.

While there'd never been anything more between himself and Arren than brotherhood, he knew how important in his own healing feeling the elf's comforting presence and caring touch had been. When Jowan finished eating, he had not the least hesitation in reaching out and taking the mage's hand in his own, putting aside the slight disquiet he felt at the rather warmer then _brotherly_ feelings that contact with the mage gave him.

The shy smile of thanks the mage gave him at the renewed contact made his heart lurch in his chest. By Andraste's grace, the man had been so hurt by his past, and yet still he could smile and find joy in the little beauties of the world... which suggested to Alistair another thing that would help his friend with his healing.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

Jowan darted a nervous look at the tent flap, chewing on his bottom lip worriedly. His thoughts were obvious – he was embarrassed at the thought of currently confronting any of their companions.

"We're on a rest day – everyone is out, hunting and gathering herbs and things like that." he said reassuringly.

Jowan nodded, then released his hand and crawled out of the tent, Alistair following along behind.

* * *

Alistair led the way into the forested slopes surrounding the camp, neither of them speaking as they threaded their way through the trees. A couple of times things caught Alistair's eye, and he stopped walking, pointing them out to Jowan. A low stump, almost black with damp rot, overgrown on one side with brilliant green moss, its hollow centre cupping a tiny puddle of water, a mottled pale brown frog no bigger than his thumbnail crouched on the rim beside an equally tiny orange peel mushroom. A huge black and white woodpecker, its body as long as his forearm, perched on the side of a cedar tree, the red cockade of feathers on its head and its bright yellow eye clearly visible as it turned its head to watch them, sharp and stark in ever detail.

Eventually they emerged from the eaves of the woods, high on a hilltop, the grasslands of the bannorn stretching off into distance away from them, dotted here and there with other clumps or lines of trees, the grassy slopes reaching as far as the eye could see, like an endless ocean of grass.

A hawk screamed somewhere far overhead. Both of them looked upwards, at the speck circling above the forested area.

"Morrigan?" Alistair asked.

"Yes," Jowan agreed.

Even as they watched, the hawk winged over and dove, dropping toward the ground with astonishing speed. Just above the forest canopy she pulled up, racing along over the treetops for some distance before abruptly dropping down out of sight into the forest.

"I wish I knew how to fly," Jowan said wistfully.

"When I see her do something like that, I find myself wishing the same thing," Alistair confessed, winning a surprised grin from Jowan.

For a while they just stood there, looking out over the world, enjoying the wind in their hair, the sunlight on their skin. Alistair could see the tension slowly draining from Jowan as the mage relaxed, his enjoyment of just being _there_ , out in the world, overcoming the lingering ghosts of his painful past.

After a while Alistair sat down, legs outstretched, hands stretched out behind him to prop himself up. Jowan looked at him curiously, then smiled and joined him, mimicking his posture, settling down in the grass to his right so they were both facing the same way, looking out over the same chunk of landscape.

Their silence continued. Alistair liked that. It was a _comfortable_ silence, a friendly one, one he felt no need to break. After a while he heard a soft sigh, and turned to see that Jowan was now stretched out on his back, hands clasped under his head, his eyes closed and a slight smile on his face. He looked... at peace, completely and utterly relaxed.

Alistair smiled, and lay back as well. He hadn't realized how tired he himself was from the stressful evening and morning. Within a few minutes, he dropped off to sleep.

* * *

The faint snore from Alistair startled Jowan's eyes open. He turned his head, ignoring the way it made the grass tickle his cheek, and smiled at the sight of the warden. He was lying bonelessly limp on the ground, mouth gaping just slightly open, head tilted back into the grass. Jowan was surprised at first by the strength of the surge of warm affection for his companion that he felt looking at him. The man was almost-a-templar after all, and the underlying basis of their relationship had been that Alistair was there to guard him, to make sure he didn't use the blood magic he'd sworn never to use. It should have felt like the man was his jailor, as the templars in the circle tower had been. And yet... it never had felt that way.

He remembered the warrior's words on a different, distant hilltop so many weeks ago, Alistair's profession to believe that templars were "supposed to be guardians, there to protect the mages, not there to imprison them" – and realized that he trusted Alistair. Trusted that Alistair meant those words, and tried to live by them. Maker knows the man had protected him – protected all the mages, all his companions – from physical harm when they'd encountered those darkspawn. That Alistair was the one of the ground who stood with sword and shield and bore the brunt of the attack, _protected_ everyone else so that they could do their jobs – it was just so _right_ , somehow, that that was his role. It fit him.

And Jowan realized part of his own growing affection for the man was based in that trust. He _trusted_ that if something made him panic, give in to temptation, _use_ those bloody powers he'd so stupidly learned... that Alistair would calmly evaluate the situation, and _stop him_ if need be, or be there protecting him and guarding him if he judged that Jowan's reaction was not, in fact, an overreaction. He trusted Alistair's judgement, trusted him to guard him not just from external threat, but from himself if need be, and most importantly of all, trusted him to never do anything more then what was _necessary_ to guard him, at any given moment. He had little doubt that should he actually prove himself a danger to the group, to their companions, that the man wouldn't hesitate to slay him where he stood, and at the same time trusted that he _would not do so_ unless it was the _only_ thing he could do.

 _This_ was what all templars should be, Jowan realized, the epiphany of the moment shaking him down to his very bones. Not jailors, not captors, not the ever-looming threat of death and punishment or tranquillity, but a strong wall to shelter behind, a strong rock to lean against. Support when you needed it, shelter when it was required, death the final option, not the merely _convenient_ one.

The depth of the emotions he was feeling was almost enough to start him crying again. Instead, soothed by the wind and sunlight, by the close presence of his friend, he moved closer, and curled up by his side, not quite touching but close enough to feel the comforting heat of his body, as welcome as the feel of the sun on his skin, and slept again as well.

* * *

Alistair smiled when he awoke, and found himself curled on one side, the mage sleeping quietly beside him in a similar position, facing him. He found himself studying Jowan's face. He was a handsome man, now that his pallor was gone, his features relaxed and open instead of frightened and pale. Even as he watched, the mage's long eyelashes trembled, then his eyes blinked open, pale grey eyes meeting his and... not flinching, not looking away. A warm smile curved Jowan's lips, and Alistair felt his own smile deepen.

Jowan's lower lip curled in as he chewed on it in one of his habitual nervous gestures. Alistair's eyes followed the moment, fascinated, wondering what the mage was thinking about now that had him unsettled. Thinking, too, how adorable the little mannerism was, and wondering what it would feel like to nibble on that lip himself. And then Jowan swallowed, and leaned slowly forward, craning his head fa little to one side to brush his lips against Alistair's own.

Alistair squeaked in startled surprise and jerked backwards, eyes widening. Jowan... had just _kissed_ him!

A devastated look crossed the mage's face, and he paled, then hurriedly started to turn over, to rise to his feet. "Sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have..."

Alistair rose to his own knees and lunged, catching Jowan around the shoulders before he could rise and run off. "No, I'm the one who's sorry," he said quickly. "You surprised me. I... wasn't expecting that."

Jowan flushed, hanging his head. Alistair could feel him trembling, knew he was thinking he'd made a huge mistake. Except... he hadn't, had he. He'd read the moment just exactly right.

"That didn't mean I didn't like it," he said softly, leaned his head closer to Jowan's, speaking softly into his ear. "Nor that I... didn't want it."

Jowan froze for a moment, not even breathing, and then he turned his head sharply, looked piercingly into Alistair's eyes. What he saw there... reassured him. Alistair could feel him relaxing within the circle of his arms, then start to shake from the sudden relief.

Wordlessly Alistair pulled him closer, hauling him around so that they ended up sitting on the ground together, Jowan in Alistair's lap, encircled by his arms, their faces for once at an even height.

They looked warily at each other, then Jowan shyly smiled, and Alistair did too, and somehow the distance between their faces slowly went away, until lips touched lips, and oh _Maker,_ he was kissing another man, and it felt _good_. And so, so very right. Lips brushing softly against lips, then a tongue-tip teasing his mouth open and then oh-so-gently invading it. He sighed, opening wider, welcoming the intrusion. And a while later, when the tongue retreated, he languidly pursued it, invading Jowan's mouth in turn. At some point he found himself sucking that beautiful bottom lip in between his own, and gently nibbling on it, just as he'd wanted to.

It was a perfect kiss. When it finally ended they just sat for a while, arms around each other, Jowan's head resting on Alistair's shoulder, just... _being_. Both of them, together.


	3. Redemption

They both felt awkward and self-conscious on their return to camp. They'd walked back staying side-by-side as much as the forest allowed them to, sometimes brushing against each other at thigh or hand or elbow or shoulder as they moved, flicking shy little glances at each other at each passing contact, when they weren't having to concentrate on their footing.

When they were almost back to the clearing, Alistair stopped, catching hold of Jowan's arm and dragging him to a stop as well. Jowan paused and looked at him curiously.

"Rather not return to camp looking like we've been rolling around in the grass," Alistair explained dryly. "Zevran will likely find reason to make a comment anyway, I'd rather not give him any additional evidence."

Jowan grinned. "Especially since we were, only not in the way he'd likely think." They hadn't done anything more than sleep in the grass, and share that one wonderful, eye-opening kiss, but he doubted the dratted assassin would ever believe them, especially if they showed up looking rumpled.

Alistair grinned, and blushed. "Exactly," he agreed.

Jowan thought Alistair's blushes were just adorable, and he stood quietly, smiling and watching the man, while Alistair brushed him down and straightened his collar, before finger-combing his hair. It was very pleasant, standing there quietly, letting the other man handle him.

Alistair gave a soft laugh, and showed him a tuft of cattail fluff he'd just untangled from Jowan's hair. Jowan laughed as well.

"How am I? Presentable as well?" Alistair asked, discarding the scrap of fluff and holding his arms out to either side.

Jowan smiled, and briskly set the other man's clothing to order as well. He grinned as he took the opportunity to ruffle Alistair's hair, enjoying the feel of it against the palms of his hand.

"Hey! No messing with the hair," Alistair exclaimed, grinning widely at him."It takes me ages to get it just the way I want it."

"Yes, I know, I've seen you fussing with it for _hours_ every morning," Jowan said dryly, smiling fondly at the templar. It amused him, how the man always talked as if he was a vain popinjay about his hair, when his idea of hair care involved plunging his head into whatever clean water was available, scraping it back from his forehead, then roughly finger-combing it upright and pretty much ignoring it the rest of the day. No wonder he kept most of it cropped so short; it was the sort of hairstyle that look no actual work to maintain, other then a regular trimming.

They were still smiling as they walked back into the camp, still side by side though not as closely together as they had been out in the forest.

The others were mainly gathered around the fire – or at least, where the fire would be later in the day, it was a circle of ashes at the moment – except Wynne, who was sitting on a stump in front of her tent, reading, and Morrigan, who was over at her separate encampment doing whatever it was she did when she was over there.

Arren was facing their direction and saw them first, smiling warmly at the sight of the pair of them. "Have a good walk?" he called out, the others turning to look the same way at his words.

"Yes, very nice," Alistair agreed. "Saw lots of wildlife and trees and things. How'd your hunting go?"

Zevran made a face. "We did not find anything worth bagging. Unless we wanted squirrel stew, and there is enough meat still in the pot that I did not think we needed to go quite that far just yet."

Sten grunted in agreement.

Arren grinned. "I think Mouse got a rabbit or two, but he wasn't in a sharing mood."

Alistair laughed, and sank down onto one of the lengths of fallen log dragged up around the fire pit. Jowan sat down beside him. They spent a pleasant hour or two just sitting there and talking, mainly about fighting and weapons, before it came time to begin preparing supper.

* * *

In the days that followed, Alistair and Jowan mainly took things very slowly, adjusting to the new closeness between them. When they had some privacy, they spent more time kissing, and at nights began their first hesitant explorations of each other's body, touching and stroking and rubbing, sometimes grinning and biting back laughter at their own or each other's reactions.

But the one thing that neither of them could manage to forget or get past was that they were closely surrounded by other people, their tent in easy earshot of several of them. Even as they increasingly lost their shyness with each other, they both shied away from revealing the extent of their relationship to the others through noises in the night.

A thunderstorm rolled in one evening, driving everyone into their tents. After the mad scramble to get all of their gear and themselves safely under cover, the two found themselves grinning madly at each other. Between raindrops drumming on canvas and the frequent rolls of thunder, it was unlikely anyone would be able to hear anything. Without another word, the two stripped down, scattering their clothes around the tent in their haste.

Alistair pulled Jowan close, the mage straddling his lap, and the two kissed hungrily, Alistair's arms folding around the mage's waist while Jowan raised his own hands to cup Alistair's head. Alistair made a growling noise of approval as Jowan plundered his mouth, then relaxed his hold a little, settling his hands flat against the mage's back and then slowly stoking them up and down against his skin, enjoying the feel of taut muscles and smooth warm skin under his fingertip. He shuddered as Jowan groaned and arched back against his touch, felt the press of Jowan's erection against his own stomach even as his own swelled against the man's buttocks.

Jowan wiggled backwards a little, reaching down with one hand, the other arm draping around Alistair's neck. He gently lifted Alistair's erection up between his own thighs, then lightly cupped his hand around it, rubbing the tip with one thumb. Alistair gasped and jerked, then grinned, breaking their kiss as he shifted his own position enough to get his hand in between the two of them as well, returning the favour, drawing a pleased hissing sound from Jowan. They'd stroked each other a little before, but had both flinched away from bringing each other off, being content with just getting each other pleasantly excited. Tonight, they knew, they were going further then that.

They soon had each other more than just pleasantly excited, both of them gasping and making little sounds of approval as they handled each other. Alistair leaned his forehead on Jowan's shoulder, trying to keep down his whimpers of pleasure as the mage rocked on his lap, Jowan hissing and muttering quiet oaths as he surged into Alistair's cupped hand, his own hand tightening and flexing on Alistair's cock, sliding up and down, rather more jerkily then the warrior was managing. But then his own weight on Alistair's lap was effectively pinning him down, preventing him from moving.

He felt his own peak coming all too quickly, and flushed as he heard the moans and cries he was making. He was _not_ going to be able to keep quiet much longer... he lowered his own head, closing his teeth around the top of Alistair's shoulder, and bit down hard to muffle his cries as he rose up on his knees, pumped frantically against Alistair's hand, then arched, spending on the warrior's stomach. Alistair gave a hoarse cry of his own, part surprised pain at the bite, mostly pleasure as he came unravelled himself.

Jowan lowered himself carefully back down, both of them releasing their grips on each other. They sat that way for a moment, ignoring the sticky mess on their stomachs and thighs, heads resting on each other's shoulder, arms around each other, their breathing slowly returning to its normal pace. Alistair turned his head, and gently kissed Jowan's cheek.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

Jowan turned his own head, pulling it back enough that Alistair could see the content smile on his face. "Yes."

They untangled themselves, then wiped themselves off, both grinning and exchanging looks that were equal parts embarrassed and pleased, before curling up together, Jowan spooned back against Alistair.

"I wonder what else we can do," Alistair whispered after a while, just loud enough to be heard over the rain.

"I'm... not quite sure. Mouths. I've heard that's good." Jowan answered. "I'm regretting I didn't spend more time listening to the stories some of the other apprentices told. I know there's... other things we can do, that are supposed to be really nice, but they can hurt a lot if you don't know how to do them right, so... I don't know."

Alistair made a grunt of agreement from behind him. "Same regret. I mean, growing up in a stable I'm, err... at least familiar with the concept of some of them, but the mechanics involved? Not so much."

They lay in silence for a while.

"There _is_ someone we could ask," Alistair reluctantly pointed out after a while. "I'm sure he'd be pleased to explain everything. Possibly with visual aids."

Jowan gave a snort of laughter. "True. He'd know," he agreed, then craned his head to look back over his shoulder at Alistair, remembering the looks the assassin had been giving him when they'd been bathing. " _I'll_ ask him, not you," he said firmly.

Alistair laughed.

* * *

Jowan was as good as his word. When they were done setting up camp the next day, Alistair saw him head over to where the elf was sitting under a tree, working on sharpening his daggers. Zevran looked up curiously, listening to his question, then his eyebrows crawled halfway up his forehead before his bright eyes flicked over to meet Alistair's.

Alistair could feel his skin flush with one of those damned blushes, but forced himself to meet the elf's appraising look, to keep his own features steady in the face of a broadly amused grin from the assassin. Zevran looked back to Jowan, nodded, and rose to his feet, taking the mage by the arm and leading him further away from the encampment. Not out of sight, but far enough away that no one could possibly overhear what they were saying to each other.

They stood for a while, side by side, almost leaning against each other as the elf talked, apparently making descriptive gestures with his hands, at least judging by the movement of his shoulders and elbows. The gestures were thankfully concealed by their bodies. After a while the elf returned to what he'd been doing, still grinning in amusement. Jowan stayed where he was for a while, looking off into the woods, then finally returned and walked back to Alistair's side.

"Everything okay? That took longer then I expected..."

Jowan actually _snickered_ , his eyes alight with mischievous glee. "Let's just say the elf knows far more about the subject than I dreamed was even _possible_. And he told me he was just giving me a quick rundown of the basics. I think we'll have, um... enough food for thought to keep us busy for a long time before we need to ever enquire about the advanced course."

"Good. It worried me a little when you took so long before coming back."

Jowan shot him a sidelong look, grinned again. "Let's just say the elf is _very good_ at description. I, errr... had to wait for emotions to _subside_ a little before I ca...before I walked back."

Alistair blinked, then laughed.

"And we either need to pray hard for more thunderstorms, or start pitching our tent further from the others," Jowan added.

They both turned and looked at their already-pitched tent.

"I suppose it might be too obvious if we moved it now," Alistair said wistfully.

Jowan bit his lip for a moment. "To the Black City with it, Zevran already knows, I bet Arren and Leliana suspect... let's just move the damned thing and be done with it."

Alistair grinned. He didn't even mind when he heard Zevran's bark of laughter as he saw what the pair were doing.

* * *

It was good to finally be open about their relationship. Alistair blushed a lot the first few days, when little things happened like him noticing Leliana smiling at the sight of him and Jowan holding hands as they walked, but he quickly got over the worst of it. And Jowan had so obviously blossomed now, walking with an assured self-confidence that had been missing before. Most of his apparent shyness had faded away, too, apparently having been based more in his fear and lack of self-confidence then in the reality of his personality. Alistair liked the change in his friend.

It wasn't until they came in sight of Lake Calenhad, the towering height of Kinloch Hold clearly visible from miles away, that he saw Jowan begin to look nervous again. It saddened him, seeing the change that came over the man as they approached the Spoiled Princess, the fear in his eyes at being so close to that place that had once been his home, and was no longer.

Their business at the inn didn't take long, the tavern keeper quietly warning them off, saying he'd not seen Brother Genitivi, though he had seen some of the Redcliffe knight. He warned them he was being watched, and refusing to divulge anything else.

They exited the tavern and found themselves being ambushed by the very watchers they'd just been warned about. It was a short, brutal fight, ending with all of the ambushers dead. Searching the bodies afterwards, they found a map on the person that had appeared to be leading the attack. A map that seemed to suggest that their attackers had come from a tiny town somewhere in the mountains across the lake.

Arren decided to stay the night at the inn, now that they'd effectively rendered it safe. It would be nice to sleep indoors for once, in real beds – at least, everyone else felt that way, even if Arren himself preferred a bedroll out under the stars to shemlen comforts.

Alistair more than half suspected that they had Morrigan to thank for their leader's change of heart; she certainly had no objection to taking advantage of creature comforts, when they were available.

Jowan was especially clingy that night, not in a demanding way, just... needing the reassurance of physical contact. Alistair had no objections to holding his partner, and wrapped him securely in both arms, tangling his legs with his. He could feel Jowan trembling slightly as he pressed close. He could only imagine the demons of memory that being so close to the tower raised in the mage's mind. As bad or worse than what he'd felt, returning to Redcliffe.

"If you had a second chance, could do it over again... would you still want to go through your harrowing?" he asked hesitantly.

Jowan went very still, then nodded."Yes," he croaked out. "Until I'm harrowed, I will never be anything but an apprentice. A failed one," he added bitterly. "Hunted and hounded and under threat of death. But there are no second chances in life."

Alistair smiled, and shook his head. "Some times there are. Over a year ago now, a Grey Warden named Duncan gave one to a clumsy brat of an almost-templar. And now I'm offering one to you. If you think you can be brave enough to go to the tower with me tomorrow, to _trust me_ , no matter how illogical it might seem... you can have your harrowing. I promise it, on my word as a Grey Warden."

Jowan's grip tightened convulsively on him. "Would I... would I have to stay there, after...?" he asked shakily after a moment.

"No. If you fail, you'll be dead, and if you pass... you're still our companion."

"Then... _yes_ ," Jowan exclaimed, voice raw with fear and longing. "I still want to go through with it. To prove that I _can_."

Alistair nodded, and just held him tightly.

* * *

Only a small group of them went over to the tower the next day – Arren, Wynne, Alistair and Jowan. As they went up to and entered the tower, Jowan held tightly to Alistair's left arm, with a white-knuckled grip that would have raised bruises had it been on flesh instead of heavy plate. He felt only slightly relieved when the pair of guards at the door totally failed to recognize him, even though he recognized them.

Arren informed the guards that they were there to speak to Greagoir and Irving, and the guards nodded and let them through, politely sending a messenger – a junior templar – dashing off upstairs ahead of them to let the pair know they were on their way up.

Jowan stared in shock as they climbed the tower. He'd heard, of course, about what had happened here, but hearing of it and seeing the place so echoingly empty, so few apprentices and mages left, shook him to the bones. So many dead, so many lives ended forever. How many of them were people that he'd known?

By the time they climbed up to the First Enchanter's office, he and Greagoir were both waiting. Greagoir smiled warmly at the group of them "Arren, good to see you again. And you as well, Wynne. Alistair. And... who is this?" he asked looking puzzled, obviously not sure who the fourth man was, but feeling he should recognize him.

"Maker's breath! It's _Jowan!_ " Irving exclaimed, rising to his feet so quickly his chair went over backwards.

The Knight-Commander had his sword in hand within moments of the words passing Irving's lips, only to find his path to the diminutive mage blocked, Alistair and Arren standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him, their eyes narrowed and their own hands resting pointedly on their own weapon hilts, Arren's huge sword partially drawn from the scabbard on his back.

"Wait, please! Greagoir, Irving – hear out what we have to say before anyone takes any rash or _foolish_ action," Wynne exclaimed.

Greagoir hesitated, eyes narrowing, then slowly stepped back, and eased his sword back into its sheath. "All right," he said, voice clipped. "This better be good."

Arren stepped off to the side again, his sword sliding back into its sheath with an audible thunk, and turned to look at Alistair. "All yours, brother," he said, a slight smile crossing his lips.

Alistair shot him a thankful smile, then pulled Jowan forward. The mage had gone pale, and was shaking like a leaf, eyes pressed tightly closed. "Trust me," Alistair murmured by his ear.

Jowan nodded, drew a long, shaky breath, and opened his eyes, _willing_ himself to relax. It was hard to do, with Greagoir and Irving standing there staring at him so suspiciously, but Alistair was at his side, and Arren was looking at him with a slight smile on his face, and even Wynne gave a slight, approving nod of her head when he glanced her way.

He felt Alistair's hand settle on his left shoulder, the fingers squeezing a little, the hard armour of his arm against Jowan's back a pressure that was comforting, reassuring, not the threat he once would have seen it.

Alistair looked at the two waiting men, gave them a very slight bow. "Knight-Commander. First Enchanter. This is Jowan, an apprentice mage of this Circle. We've brought him here to you today because he still needs his harrowing," he said calmly.

"What!" Greagoir barked, looked puzzled. Irving merely frowned thoughtfully, glancing from the mage to Alistair and back again.

"And why would we want to harrow a blood mage!" Greagoir spat. "He's already proven that he's only deserving of death!"

"No, ser," Alistair objected, shaking his head. "He is not a blood mage."

"Are you denying he's ever used blood magic?" Irving asked, cautiously.

"It would be a foolish argument to make, given that he's used it on _us_ ," Greagoir dryly pointed out.

"No. But I _am_ arguing that it is not the use of blood magic that necessarily makes one a blood mage, no more than the use of a hammer or saw necessarily makes one a carpenter."

Greagoir looked puzzled. Irving merely looked... startled. And _interested_. "Go on," he said after a moment. "Your argument... intrigues me."

Alistair nodded, and took a deep breath. "Jowan has freely admitted to me that he did, indeed, study blood magic – out of curiosity, mainly. He took it as far as trying – and succeeding in – a single simple spell, using only his own blood. After which he decided that it was not a branch of magic he had any real interest in pursuing further, and dropped its study."

"And yet we know he did in fact go on to use it again, on at least two notable occasions, and Maker only knows how many others," Greagoir grimly pointed out.

Alistair nodded. "Yes, he did. Knight-Commander, First Enchanter, I must ask the two of you... before the incident with Jowan's phylactery, had you drafted and signed a paper authorizing Jowan to be made tranquil rather than harrowed?"

" _What!_ " the Knight-commander barked angrily. "Of course not! The boy had never shown any interest in being made tranquil, and while templars at other circles have argued that applying it involuntarily in cases where the mage is judged likely to fail is a kinder mercy then allowing their failure, we have certainly never subscribed to any such clap-trap _here!_ "

"Am I to believe that Jowan claims to have seen such a paper?" Irving asked sharply, his eyes flint-like.

"No. But he was assured by a chantry sister, one Lily by name, that _she_ had seen such a paper, and on its basis she convinced him to organize an escape attempt for the two of them."

"Ah. _Her_ ," Irving said, and shot Greagoir a look.

Greagoir looked grim. "I'd certainly not put it past _her_ ," he agreed.

Jowan was looking back and forth between the two of them, surprised by their reaction to her name. "Please," he suddenly spoke up. "Lily – what happened to her? I know you were threatening her with being sent to Aeonar, before I... before I ran..."

Greagoir sighed. "I wish we had," he said bitterly. "No, her repentance after you left seemed... contrite, so she was allowed to stay on. I wish we'd known earlier about her real part in your escape attempt," he added grimly. "Her next attempt to leave the tower involved her poisoning several of the guards. She _claimed_ she thought it was only a sleeping draught she'd put in their wine. It was after _that_ incident that she was finally sent to Aeonar."

"She may even have honestly believed that it was merely a sleeping draught, at the time," Irving said. "It was quite some time later before we ever found out from whom she'd acquired the potion. A certain mage named Uldred, whom I'm sure you three remember."

"Only too well," Wynne responded, Arren and Alistair nodding in agreement.

"Very well, continue with your argument, please," Irving prompted, looking at Alistair.

Alistair nodded. "Jowan was deathly afraid that he was going to be made tranquil, rather then given his harrowing. Lily clearly played on those fears, engineering their resultant escape attempt. When the attempt failed, you threatened him with summary execution, did you not, Greagoir?"

The Knight-Commander reluctantly nodded. "I did. At the time it seemed justified."

"Justified, when all that had happened was the destruction of an easily-replaced phylactery?" Alistair asked mildly.

"He was a _blood-mage!_ His subsequent actions proved it!" Greagoir snapped.

Irving made an interested sound, and straightened in his chair. "My dear friend, I think you have just hit on exactly the point our warden friend is striving to make – that until he was threatened with his own imminent death, Jowan had _not_ used blood magic, not in any real capacity, and therefore was not in fact a blood mage."

Alistair grinned approvingly at the man. "Exactly, ser," he agreed, then turned back to a slightly flabbergasted-looking Greagoir.

"How many people died in his escape attempt? Or were injured? Enthralled? What source did Jowan use for the blood to power his spells?" he rapped out the questions one after another.

Greagoir was frowning in thought. Slowly, his shoulders slumped, the fight going out of him. He looked up after a minute, looked steadily at the mage standing by Alistair's side. "You are right," he said suddenly. "I let my fears control me. The whole tower was so rife with rumours of a blood mage coven at the time... I guess I was seeing threat where none existed. Maker knows I managed to miss seeing where it really lay," he added bitterly. "Perhaps I am getting too old for this job."

"Never, Greagoir," Irving said quietly. "We accrete experience as a tree grows rings. This has been a bitter, bitter year for both of us. But we must learn from it, and move on, and never forget what mistakes we have made. With luck, we'll not repeat them. With real luck, neither will our successors."

Greagoir nodded.

* * *

The two men looked at each other for a long moment, a speaking look. Irving raised an eyebrow after a while. Greagoir snorted and gave a slight nod, then turned back to look at Alistair and Jowan.

"Very well. You may have your harrowing, though there is one condition I must insist upon, given the events that led to Jowan's... extended absence from the circle."

"And that is?" Alistair asked, a wary edge in his voice.

"That we replace his phylactery. In return for which, he will be harrowed, and recognized as a full mage if he passes. The orders for his capture or death will be rescinded, and he will be reinstated as a full member of this circle."

Alistair turned and looked at his friend. "Your call, my friend," he said. "You know I won't force you to do it if you don't want to."

The smile that lit Jowan's face made his heart lurch in his chest.

"Yes," Jowan said. "Please. I'll do it."

Irving himself drew the blood, casting the minor spell that forever linked the contents of the phylactery to the donor. Greagoir nodded satisfaction as it was given into his keeping.

"The harrowing chamber has been made ready," he told them. "Shall we proceed?"

"One additional request, please," Alistair said quietly.

"Yes?" Greagoir asked.

"I will stand as knight-attendant to the candidate," Alistair said, quietly, reaching to lightly touch fingers to the hilt of his sword. "I've promised him that if he fails, I'll cut him down myself."

Greagoir gave the younger man a startled look, which quickly turned to a piercingly evaluative look. He finally nodded in understanding. "Very well. It is acceptable."

They climbed to the Harrowing Chamber at the top of the tower. It was brightly lit by sunlight pouring in the stained glass windows, long since cleaned of the horrors that had filled it when Uldred and his coven of blood mages had broken the circle.

Jowan had always expected that he'd be frightened, being here, facing his harrowing, and instead found himself filled with hope as he looked around the sunlit room. A ring of templars lined the walls. Arren and Wynne stood near the top of the stairs, waiting calmly, Arren with a look of interest on his face.

Greagoir, Irving, Alistair and Jowan walked out to the centre of the room, near to the simple stand that held the pool of lyrium-infused fluid that Jowan would ingest as part of the ritual.

Irving calmly spoke the nearly ceremonial words he used with all apprentices. "Every mage must go through this trial by fire. As we succeeded, so shall you. Keep your wits about you and remember the Fade is a realm of dreams. The spirits may rule it, but your own will is real."

"Approach the pool, and drink," Greagoir intoned.

Jowan stepped forward. Behind him, he heard the scrape of Alistair's sword leaving its scabbard, the slight tink of its tip touching down on the stone floor. The sound did not frighten him. It gave him confidence. Alistair had his back. He could trust his friend to do whatever was... the _necessary_ thing.

He cupped his hands, lifted a double handful of the glowing blue liquid. Paused, and looked over his shoulder, smiling as his eyes met calm amber ones.

"I love you," he said, clearly, happily, then turned away again, and drank.

* * *

Alistair sat quietly beside the bed, watching Jowan sleep. He'd had no doubt at all that the mage would pass his harrowing, not when he'd seen so much of his inner strength in the weeks since they'd first met. Greagoir and Irving, on the other hand, had been shocked – not so much at Jowan having passed, but at the _speed_ with which he'd done so. They were still arguing amicably over whether it was the third- or second-fastest harrowing they could recall even as they left the room after seeing "the boy" safely settled.

That had been almost an hour ago; Jowan should be waking soon. No sooner had Alistair thought so when the mage yawned, and stretched, opening his eyes. He smiled when he saw Alistair sitting beside the bed.

"Hello, Mage Jowan," Alistair said, grinning. "Had enough beauty sleep?"

Jowan snorted. "If that's what it takes to have beauty sleep, I'll pass and remain my normal homely self, thank you very much," he said.

Alistair laughed, and rose to his feet, reaching out to offer his hand to help Jowan up. "Homely, you? Maybe when you were a spotty-faced gangly kid. Not now," he said.

Jowan gave his a startled look, surprised at the sincerity in his voice, then smiled as he rose. "Not that you're in the _least_ biased, of course," he said.

"Not, not at all," Alistair happily agreed, and gave him a lingering kiss. "Show off," he muttered.

"What?" Jowan said surprised.

"I love you too, you know," Alistair told him, softly, his ears turning bright red as he spoke. "Just don't go expecting me to declare it quite so... flamboyantly."

Jowan laughed. "Oh. _That._ Sorry. I just... if anything did go wrong, I didn't want to have never told you that," he said shyly.

"I'm glad you did. It mainly made me wish that I'd thought to say it first," he added, grinning at the mage. "Anyway, you're now an official mage again. You can wear the shiny robes and everything, if you want."

Jowan wrinkled his nose. "I _like_ breeches and a shirt. I swear, ninety percent of mage robes are designed with the idea in mind of making mages easier to spot from a distance. I'd rather blend in, thank you, especially when the landscape is full of darkspawn and bandits."

"And bounty hunters, don't forget the bounty hunters."

"Bounty hunters?"

"We haven't mentioned those to you yet? Yes, bounty hunters. Loghain's put a nice little reward on all of our heads. You'll get one too, eventually, if you're lucky."

"Oh, joy, something more to look forward to."

* * *

They headed down to the library, where Wynne and Arren had said they'd be waiting for them – Wynne had wanted to do some research while she had the chance, and Arren was interested in seeing some books of Dalish lore that she'd mentioned the library contained. They were almost there when a couple of robe-clad figures came charging along the hallway toward them. Jowan came to an abrupt stop. Alistair paused, hand going to his sword hilt as he eyed the pair.

"Jowan!" the shorter of the pair cried out as they ran closer, a brilliant smile lighting her face. She was a tiny elf – tiny even _for_ an elf – her hair cropped down to just a dark fuzz covering her scalp, face tattooed with a brilliant flame pattern nearly as rich a gold as the trim on her robes. The other, a tall, lanky human male with an improbably long mane of brownish-blond hair, had an equally wide smile on his face.

Not a threat after all, he decided, and released his sword hilt

"Mara! Owen!" Jowan choked out, before the two bowled into him, the three going into a complicated three-way hug.

"Oh, you _idiot!_ " Mara suddenly exclaimed, and punched Jowan savagely in the ribs, making him go "oof!" as the blow drove the air out of his lungs. And then hugged him tightly again, Jowan and Owen exchanging a look that made it clear this was usual behaviour for the girl.

"I'm _so glad_ to see you two," Jowan stammered. "After the way I'd run... and then later, hearing about what happened here... I didn't know if you were alive or dead, free or in Aeonar..."

Owen snorted, and reached out to lightly bounce his fist off the top of Jowan's head. "No better then we knew how _you_ were," he pointed out.

"What _happened!_ " Jowan pleaded.

"We should probably stop blocking the entire hallway," Alistair mildly pointed out. The three gave him a startled look, then Jowan grinned.

"Introductions," he said. "Alistair, these are Mara Surana and Owen Amell, the friends I told you about. Mara, Owen, this is Alistair."

They exchanged nods.

"Where should we go?" Mara said. "There's always mine or Owen's room..."

"We have a couple friends waiting for us in the library," Alistair said.

"Oh, that will do fine," Mara said, and turned and started back that way, hauling Jowan along by the hand. He laughed, and allowed her to drag him along, Owen and Alistair bringing up the rear.

* * *

They were soon all settled down in a quiet corner of the library, Owen slouched down on a bench, his back propped against the edge of a table behind him, Mara sitting cross-legged across his lap, heels neatly tucked up on his thigh. Jowan sat down beside Owen, and Alistair sat down beside him. Arren carried over a chair for Wynne, so she could sit facing the bench, then sunk down cross-legged on the carpet to her right, where he could see everyone.

"So what happened to you two?" Jowan asked again.

"Lots of things," Owen said.

"Well, you know Greagoir wanted to send us to Aeonar because of us destroying your phylactery, right?" Mara asked.

Jowan winced. "I... guessed he might do that. Didn't think of it until I was already too far away to come back and try to do anything useful about it," he added glumly.

"You always were piss-poor at thinking ahead," Owen said affectionately, the tone of voice and crooked smile on his face making the words friendlier than they seemed on the surface.

Jowan winced again. "I hope I'm getting better at it now. I've certainly had enough nasty lessons lately about looking before I leap."

"Anyway, that Lily came over all contrite about her role in your escape, and Greagoir decided to allow her to stay on here rather than sending her to Aeonar," Mara continued.

"And then he was all for locking _us_ up in the cells in the basement until he could arrange for us to be sent to Aeonar," Owen said.

"But we were being contrite too – _very_ contrite! – and much more believably then that Lily was," Mara picked up the tale again.

"Of course, we really _were_ contrite," Owen pointed out, and gave Jowan a look. "Blood magic? What in the Black City were you _thinking!_ " he asked, then raised his hand and lightly slapped the back of Jowan's head."

"Ow! Mara, tell him to stop beating on me," Jowan managed in a credibly whiny voice, then returned to his normal tones. "The problem was, I wasn't. Thinking, that is."

"I know, you were just reacting. And frightened. And _stupid_ ," Mara said, leaning forward and jabbing his arm sharply with her finger.

"Ow! Alistair, I may have to ask you to protect me from these two. They're _vicious_."

Alistair grinned. "I don't know, I think they're perfectly justified so far."

"Traitor!"

Alistair just grinned again, pleased to see Jowan so at ease with his old friends. And amused by the way his two friends tossed the storytelling effortlessly back and forth between them.

"Anyway, where were we," Mara began.

"Contrite."

"Yes, contrite. And Irving pointed out that locking us up in the dungeon and then sending us off to Aeonar for our part in your escape was hardly fair if Lily was getting off free when she was just as involved. Smacked of favouritism and so on. So he had him argued down to us being confined to the the mage quarters while our cases were considered."

"In other words, while he nagged at Greagoir to give up on the whole Aeonar idea," Owen interjected.

"Which was taking him a good long while. Which was okay, I was getting in lots of reading and studying and things."

"As was I."

"And then the whole thing with the blood mages started, and the tower pretty much went to the Black City in a handbasket within a couple of hours. Very nasty!"

"How'd you two survive?" Jowan asked.

"Luck. And Uldred made the mistake of underestimating Mara."

"Stupid big male shem," she said disparagingly. "I was out in the hallway when the whole thing blew up, and he and his blood mages came pouring down the hall with mayhem on their non-existent minds. He had a clear shot at me and ignored it in favour of going after some poor blighted _apprentice_ who was bigger than me and male. So I blew a shield across the hallway between us – which didn't last long, but bought me a couple minutes anyway – and raised the alarm and ran like hell."

"Her shield and alarm saved quite a few people, gave us a chance to know what was going on _before_ finding ourselves with a face full of maleficar."

"Forewarned is forearmed and all that. Anyway, Owen and I fought a rather brilliant retreat down the Tower, rounded up everyone we could who we were pretty sure wasn't a blood mage – not that hard to do, almost everyone who was one had a dripping hand by then – and holed up in those storage caverns down below. You remember, the ones where that silly woman with the spider phobia had you do her work in pest control for her."

"I figure we had at least a third of the harrowed mages and three quarters of the apprentices in there before we had to lock and shield the doors," Owen said, smiling proudly.

"And most of the tranquil, too – at least _them_ we knew were safe," Mara continued. "And a whole pile of rather paranoid templars, just to round off the collection. And then we just holed up and did a lot of sitting around waiting for things to quiet down again. It wasn't very pleasant... we could _feel_ that Uldred and his mages were doing things up in the tower somewhere. And every now and then they'd try to break through our shields, but we had more mages than they did, and the shields on the storage area are ages old and very strong."

"Got a bit _interesting_ at one point," Owen said dryly.

"A few times," Mara corrected. "The worst was when a couple of blood mages who had ended up in with us tried to sneak over and open the doors. But we were prepared for them."

"Yeah, we'd put all those nice paranoid templars near the door and told them to feel free to drain and smite anyone who tried to approach them who wasn't us."

"We had to kill the blood mages, of course," Mara said quietly, and for a moment the chill in her voice and the look in her eyes showed that, for all her tiny charm, she could be just as cold-blooded as she needed to be. "None of us were willing to risk what they might do if they managed to break free. And then afterwards we still had to worry that there might be more of them in with us, or that some of us might be thralls."

"And then a couple days later we had templars knocking on the door. We were all very relieved to get out of there," Owen said, smiling.

"At least once they'd convinced us that they weren't puppets of Uldred. I was never so happy in my life to hear Greagoir's voice."

"And after that he could hardly send us off to Aeonar, not now that we're big heroes for our part in rescuing so many people." Owen finished.

"We can do no wrong, at least until they forget what superb heroes we were," Mara agreed, smiling cheerfully.

* * *

Jowan was smiling as he followed his companions down out of the tower. It had been good to see his friends again, to hear their story, to know that they were alive and still cared for him. He'd promised to write frequently, and let them know how he was doing, and to visit again when he could.

He glanced at Alistair, walking along beside him, and felt a surge of affection for the man. How much his life had changed since meeting him... and how much more it had changed in the last day. He could hold his head up and live without fear now. He was a mage, a harrowed mage, with a place in the circle. He raised his hand, lightly brushing his fingers against the pocket that held his copy of his authorization to travel abroad from the tower, as they walked out the door.

He stopped at the top of the path down to the dock, and just stood a moment, looking around, drinking in the sights and smells. This was where he belonged, where home truly was for him now. Not in the tower, though he was gladdened by the knowledge that he could return there any time he wanted to, would have a home there any time he needed it.

No... here, outside, under the endless vault of the empty blue sky, was home.

With Alistair.


End file.
